Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book shows how media technologies and cultures have worked to reassert US vertical hegemony after 9/11. In order for vertical mediations to be intelligible, acts of communication are required. The book explores various vertical mediations by adopting a new approach to the concept of media coverage. Building on the research on militainment, it then explores how different forms of coverage, including television news broadcasts, geospatial images, leaflets, airport security scans, Google Earth interfaces, YouTube videos, and digital photographs, rendered vertical forms of power intelligible to publics and in the process worked to reassert US vertical hegemony after 9/11. In addition to recognizing convergent and multi-modal media, the book examines how coverage is organized along a vertical axis of power. Different social subjects have experienced post-9/11 cultural atmospherics in different ways.